Telling the Difference: Tips on How to Judge If It’s High-Quality Wood Furniture

Choosing the best quality wood furniture can give you some difficulty. For sure, many pieces in the market will deceive you by their appearance alone, only to prove that they are not of superior quality when you start to use them.

Pieces of furniture made of superior materials and done with solid construction can last longer, even decades and centuries. Thus, you need to judge better if it is an excellent piece you are buying. The question is: how to tell the difference between shoddy and high-quality wood furniture?

Wood furniture comes from different wood materials classified as soft, hard, and engineered. Knowing what kind of wood material of your furniture is crucial because this is one of the factors that tell how your furniture will last and how it will fare as time advances.

Those furniture pieces that usually last longer is known as hardwood, but they can a bit expensive. Hardwood comes from deciduous trees like maple, mahogany, oak, walnut, teak, birch, and cherry. It is usually denser and has a more muffled sound when you tap them than other kinds of wood material.

It is also common to find furniture pieces made from engineered wood. It may not be as sturdy and durable as hardwood, but you should not dismiss it as low-quality because it still provides strength and prevents warping and breaking. Engineered wood can be sturdy and highly-attractive when applied with veneers.

Determine How It is Made

Of course, to determine whether a piece of furniture is superior or not is to know the whole process that the material goes through. Most furniture pieces nowadays are assembled using veneer.

A veneer is a flimsy wood with ⅛ inch thickness layered to the surface of the furniture piece. You can get veneer by either peeling the tree trunk or by slicing rectangular blocks of flitches.

High-quality furniture pieces have at least 1-inch thick of veneer applied on it. Of course, this will make the furniture piece lasts much longer.

Check the Furniture Construction

The Construction of a furniture piece will define the piece’s aesthetic, how long it will serve you, and how it will function. Check on those essential attributes of a high-quality of furniture for you to have the best buy.

In general, an excellent way to tell the quality of construction is to look for the joinery of the furniture piece. Good furniture pieces have screwed joints. But the best furniture pieces have dovetailed joints, or linked with a mortise and tenon. They also have a reinforcement block attached at an angle on every corner.

Low-quality furniture pieces, on the other hand, is simpler to determine. Poor quality furniture pieces have joints that are stapled, nailed, or glued. The problem with poor quality pieces is that they easily come apart and might endanger the safety of the user. You can find an excellently constructed wooden furniture in furniture sites like Black Mango.

Superior Wood Furniture Has Good Finishing Touches

The finishing on a wood furniture can make or break the overall quality of the piece. The finishing process should include three things: the sanding, staining, and the final finishing.

An excellent furniture piece should be resistant to scratch because if it is vulnerable to scrape and scratch it will not be good to display in your home. You can test the furniture piece if it easily dents on the surface by running your fingernails over the surface. Also, check the furniture piece at different angles for blotch and scratches.

Modern wood furniture finishes range from high-gloss to matte. A superior wood finish is satiny smooth and does not have rough patches, bubbles, and dust specks. Check for the depth and richness of the wood finish, which comes from great coats of finish between sanding.

Check for Warranty

When you buy something, it is essential to check if you get a warranty for it, especially when it comes to buying furniture. Even though the furniture piece you buy is a strong and durable one, a sale warranty will help you on maintenance in case of future damage. So be sure to check for a warranty.

Takeaway

A wood furniture is an excellent material for a home furnishing because of its several advantages. Wooden furniture pieces will suit almost any room due to its warmth, richness, comfort, and finesse. Before you buy one, however, it is essential to tell the difference between low-quality and superior wood furniture.